Our bus journey from Niš to Skopje took us through endless farmland filled with sunflowers and corn. The sunflowers were still in bud, but in a few weeks they would have created a stunning golden sea.

The border crossing was quick and efficient. We were stamped out of Serbia and into North Macedonia without drama and arrived in Skopje quite late.

The trouble began the moment we reached our Airbnb. After climbing four steep flights of stairs with our packs, we discovered the key safe was broken. We were hot, tired, and hungry with no way to get inside. Fortunately we could connect to the apartment’s Wi-Fi from the foyer and saw a message from the host saying the key was under the mat.

The apartment itself was awful — dirty, with a moldy fridge, a filthy shower, and a non-working cooktop. When I politely messaged the host, his response was flippant. For the first time ever, I lodged a complaint with Airbnb. They handled it excellently, and the owner eventually told us to leave the next morning and he would issue a full refund.

We quickly found a much better apartment in a lovely part of town, close to a great café and supermarket, and moved early the next day.

Skopje is a very unusual city. The centre features enormous statues, vast marble squares, and huge neoclassical buildings with columns everywhere. It feels almost surreal, yet strangely I really liked it.

The heat was intense (often around 40°C), but we made the most of a slightly cooler day to explore the old town and bazaar. The bazaar was once a thriving market but now mostly sells tourist souvenirs and Turkish-style street food. We had one mediocre lunch there and decided to cook for ourselves for the rest of our stay.

We spent 10 days in Skopje. Once we moved apartments, we settled in nicely, got some work done, and lived quite normally.